


Icarus Falling

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:52:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had no wings to catch him when he fell</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Special love to [](http://asta77.livejournal.com/profile)[**asta77**](http://asta77.livejournal.com/) for the original canon, [](http://widget285.livejournal.com/profile)[**widget285**](http://widget285.livejournal.com/) for the encouragement, [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/) for the beta and [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)**inlovewithnight** for the title.

The only time Sebastian didn’t talk about God was the only time Charles actually thought he might exist. Charles might think it amusing if he gave it thought, though he tries very hard not to think around Sebastian. Sebastian isn’t made for thinking, he’s made for feeling, doing.

They’re doing nothing right now, which is something else that Sebastian is terribly good for and at. The chimneys rise up around them like a foreign landscape, a small city of their own in the countryside. Sebastian is spread out on the blanket, naked and tanned in ways that other Englishmen never seem to be, sprawled and wanton, in the way that Sebastian always is. He looks at home, despite the setting, lying on a blanket big enough for them both, though Sebastian insisted they have two blankets and more room and more wine, and Charles had not felt inclined to disagree with any of it at all.

There is a soft breeze, and soft voices somewhere in the distance, sounding miles away even through the great megaphones of the Agricultural Show. Charles can hear them faintly, gently drifting over the grasses and purple flowers, up along the great walls of Brideshead and into the drifting clouds, but it all seems rather far away and imaginary; the only real things around are Charles and Sebastian and the sun and the blankets and a really very good wine.

“I shall stay like this always,” Sebastian declares, as is his way. Sebastian doesn’t say anything or muse on something. He demands and declares, definitive statements that brook no argument and are as likely to cause a temper tantrum as a pout if they’re disagreed with. “Naked as the day I was born until Nanny bundled me up in something horrid and blue and carted me off to the nursery. Under the sun and steeped in fine wine and good company.”

“The sun will not always shine, I believe you told me, Sebastian,” Charles remonstrates gently, his amusement plain.

“No. It never seems to shine here for long, though it is brighter with you here, Charles.” He turns his head and smiles, and it’s really a lovely smile, filled with mischief and promise and something slightly dark around the edges that draws one in like a mystery begging to be solved. It’s always that darkness that pulls Charles closer, tugs him in.

“You are a creature of flattery, Sebastian. Made purely of it and giving it freely.” He reaches over and brushes his fingers across Sebastian’s lips, unable or unwilling to keep from feeling the soft sensuousness of them. “I have no bearing on the sun.”

“Not the sun then, but the shadows.” He shifts to his side, and Charles lets his eyes run over the lean, muscled frame, the tanned skin. “You chase them away with your sensibility and forthrightness. It’s terribly good of you, though I fear someday I shall hate you for it.”

“You’ll hate me, you think?”

“Hate you and love you in equal measure, no doubt, as all good boys do.”

Charles chuckles softly. “And are you a good boy, Sebastian?”

“Oh, absolutely not, Charles. Ask anyone.” He leans in and there’s suddenly no distance between them. “Though if you ask me, I swear I shall tell you, and only you, the unvarnished truth.”

“I have asked you.”

Sebastian smiles wickedly and cleverly, and he really is far too beautiful to be real. “And did I not answer you, Charles?” He does away with what little space remains between them, his lips warm and wet hot on Charles’s lips. A low moan slips past Charles’s lips, and he reaches for Sebastian, needing to feel that skin, revel in his brightness.

Sebastian matches him kiss for kiss, soft hungry sound for another. They kiss and touch as though it is their first time, learning muscle and flesh and tangling in hair cut nearly too short for such things. Charles moves closer, setting Sebastian to sprawling on his back again, the limpid sunlight bathing them both as he angles between Sebastian’s legs and sets their bodies together in a slow, easy slide of skin on skin.

There’s another low moan and Sebastian breaks the kiss, gasping for air and fumbling for the wine. He drinks from the bottle and lets it trail from the corner of his mouth, leaving Charles no choice but to chase the burgundy down his flesh and then back up, finding another kiss exactly where he expects it, only sticky-sweet with grape and the taste of laughter.

They move in an easy rhythm, their bodies used to this and to each other. There are other times for other things, but the heat and the haze of the day call for nothing more that this slow stroke, the easy glide. Charles feels Sebastian hard against him and presses down, slides along his length. Sticky and thick, skin slicked with oils they’d poured on one another earlier to darken their skin as though they might brag that they’ve been to the beaches and villas of Spain or Italy instead of the wilds of Wiltshire this summer.

He slides a hand between them, shifting so Sebastian is caught between Charles’s hand and arousal, stroking him with increasing intensity. Sebastian’s head is thrown back in pleasure, his neck exposed like a column of fine architecture, like a living sculpture to mold with his hands.

Sebastian tastes of sweat and talcum, of flesh and sun. He tastes of the warm burn that fires in Charles’s breast and belly, at the base of his erection as his hips act of their own accord, meeting Sebastian’s eager thrusts with his own. There’s the reminder of last night’s fumbled lovemaking in the dark, the hint of wax from where the candle tipped and dropped the heated liquid onto Sebastian’s skin, and Charles wonders if this is what Icarus tasted like, wings singed and melted by the sun.

A heavy breath brings Charles back to himself and to Sebastian, to the moment. He feels the muscles stiffening beneath him and knows Sebastian is close, knows the tell-tale signs. It is here, in this moment, that Charles lets himself believe, for an instant, in God, as surely Sebastian is a fallen angel in glorious agony as he gives himself over to his body’s basest need. Ever since the first time, he’s expected God’s name to fall from Sebastian’s lips, and every time he is disappointed by silence that ends only with Charles’s name whispered in a kind of reverence Sebastian never gives to God.

He follows Sebastian over the edge soon, the heat and the easy slide brought on by the thick moisture leaving him little choice. He lies there, braced above Sebastian, staring down at him as though he sits on high. He should be grateful to be revered, he supposes, but the only thing it makes him feel is fear.

Gods can fall, Charles thinks as he kisses Sebastian once more and then rolls beside him, letting the sun warm away his sudden chill. And, as he is no god at all, he’s terrified the fall will kill him, as he hasn’t Sebastian’s angel wings to catch him in mid-flight.  


**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 8-27-06


End file.
